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Bonobos Weekday Warrior Pants Review: Making It Easier to Dress Up

With added stretch, five fits and two dozen colors, this simple dress pant does the job.

a man wearing a suit while jumping Bonobos

By Evan Malachosky

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Everyone needs a trusty pair of dress pants: ones that go with every shirt and every tie they own, and nicely complement the dress shoes in their closet. That’s a tall order, especially for the pairs shoppers find in big stores. They’re not all bad, but most aren’t all that simple, either. They’re charcoal gray or navy blue, with a sort of strange texture and a surprisingly slim fit; needless to say, they’re nothing like the pants most men reach for each morning.

These days, offices are more casual than ever, and few men attend events with formal dress codes with regularity. Instead, they dress in run-of-the-mill garments: jeans, chinos, sweatshirts, perhaps a sweater and sneakers or boots. Dress pants exist in another realm, in the “Do I really need to wear these?” section of your closet.

But Bonobos’s Weekday Warrior Dress Pants are a breeze to wear, and comfortable no matter whether you’re dancing at a wedding or sitting at your desk.

Bonobos Weekday Warrior Dress Pants Review

Pros

  • Stretchy material helps you sit comfortably at a desk
  • Numerous of colors come with embroidered waistband — i.e. this blue says "Monday"
  • They fit well straight from the box — no need for tailoring

Cons

  • They aren't the dressiest, but they work for most formal and semi-formal settings

What’s Good About the Weekday Warrior Dress Pants

They’re comfortable, even when sitting down at a desk.

Most dress pants are tight and tidy, a tailored garment meant to streamline your silhouette. That can lead to problems — there’s even a term for it: “standing pants.” As you might guess, they’re pants you can only stand in, because sitting down in the tight seat proves too difficult. Beyond simply sitting down, most of these dress pants don’t let you move around much, especially on the dance floor.

a man wearing dress pantsBonobos

The Weekday Warrior Dress Pants, however, make it easy to do it all. That’s thanks in part to the pants’ customizable fit. Wearers can choose from Slim Taper, Tailored, Slim, Athletic and Straight, which offer various benefits for different body shapes.

  • Slim Taper: Slim at the waist, comfortable in the thighs and tight around the ankles.
  • Tailored: Slimmer in the hips and rear and narrows as you near the bottom.
  • Slim: Slim throughout, in a consistent, flattering way.
  • Athletic: This is the ideal fit for me, someone with thicker thighs and calves. These come with a roomier seat (just right for sitting down) and slightly tapered legs.
  • Straight: Roomy throughout, including at the opening.

This offers plenty of customization, especially for a pants that are designed to be made in mass quantities.

They fit well straight from the box.

Because you can essentially choose your fit, yours should flatter from the jump, not just after a visit to your trusty tailor. Plus, they also come hemmed. That being said, if you do need to make adjustments, they should be easily accomplished — the pants aren’t particularly intricate.

The exception is length, because your tailor won’t be able to make them much longer if you drastically underestimated your natural leg length. These come in a number of waist sizes and lengths (28-54 and 28-36, respectively), so choose wisely and you should have a pair of pants designed your specific body shape — and it’s rare to find pants you custom order to your liking for only $119.

a man wearing dress pantsBonobos

They come in a ton of colors.

Truthfully, I don’t think every person needs dress pants in every color. In reality, it’s easier to buy several blue ones, if that’s the color that, ahem, best suits you. But Bonobos offers colors tied to particular days, if you’re someone who values variety: Monday Blue, Tuesday Black, Wednesday Wheat, Thursday True Khaki, Friday Sage and so on. (There are other Tuesday colors, for example.)

I’m not saying you should drop $595 for dress pants to match the days of the week, but if you like these pants, especially in your chosen fit, it’s good to know you can come back for another pair, likely in a new color (or the same if yours somehow go missing or are irreversibly damaged).

What’s Not Ideal About These Pants

They’re pretty standard, and that’s fine…except for special occasions.

The Weekday Warrior Dress Pants are utilitarian, and that’s a good thing, except for when you’re trying to really dress up. They aren’t particularly over-the-top, which makes sense, considering they’re meant for slugging through the work week on a tireless quest toward the weekend. (As Urban Dictionary puts it, a Weekday Warrior is someone “battling through the weekdays to get to the weekends…” or someone “who attends school or work, somewhere they’d rather not be, and are miserable.”

Simply put, these pants are for mindless dressing up — when you’re met with a dress code you can’t circumvent.

Bonobos Weekday Warrior Dress Pants: The Verdict

For those seeking a simple wardrobe constant — something comfortable, good-looking and, best of all, dressed up that they can put on without much thought — Bonobos’s Weekday Warrior Dress Pant works well in this role. Plus, it comes in a number of colors and fits so you can tailor (pun intended) the style to your existing office ensemble. Inversely, if you’re building one from scratch, this is a great place to start.

Pros

  • Stretchy material helps you sit comfortably at a desk
  • Numerous of colors come with embroidered waistband — i.e. this blue says "Monday"
  • They fit well straight from the box — no need for tailoring

Cons

  • They aren't the dressiest, but they work for most formal and semi-formal settings

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